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Soviet Union (1922–1942)
|conventional_long_name= |common_name=the Soviet Union |continent=Eurasia |era= |government_type= |publisher= |year_start = 1922 |year_end = 1942 |date_start = 30 December |event_start = Treaty of Creation |event1 = Constitution adopted |date_event1 = 5 December 1936 |event2 = European War |date_event2 = 1939 - 1942 |date_end = 27 March |event_end = Armistice declared |image_flag = Flag of the Soviet Union (1923-1955).svg border |flag_type = Flag |flag = |image_coat = USSR_Emblem_by_soaringaven.png |symbol = |symbol_type = State Emblem |image_map = Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (orthographic projection).svg |image_map_size = 220px |image_map_caption = The Soviet Union before the European War |capital = Moscow |national_motto = Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! |national_anthem = (1922–1942) |common_languages = |demonym = , |currency = Soviet ruble (руб) |leader1 = Joseph Stalin |leader2 = |year_leader1 = 1922–1942 |year_leader2 = |title_leader = General Secretary | |representative1 = Mikhail Kalinin |representative2 = |year_representative1 = 1922–1942 |year_representative2 = |title_representative = Head of state | |deputy1 = Vladimir Lenin |deputy2 = Vyacheslav Molotov |year_deputy1 = 1922–1924 |year_deputy2 = 1942 |title_deputy = Head of government | |legislature = Congress of Soviets Supreme Soviet |house1 = Soviet of the Union |house2 = Soviet of Nationalities |stat_year1 = |stat_area1 = |stat_pop1 = |p1 = Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Russian SFSR |flag_p1 = Flag of Russian SFSR (1918-1937).svg |p2 = Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic Transcaucasian SFSR |flag_p2 = Flag of Transcaucasian SFSR.svg |flag_p4 = Flag of the Byelorussian SSR (1919).svg |p5 = Bukharan People's Soviet Republic |flag_p5 = Flag of the Bukharan People's Soviet Republic.svg |p6 = Khorezm People's Soviet Republic |flag_p6 = Flag of Khiva 1920-1923.svg |s1 = Soviet Union (1942–1991) Soviet Union |flag_s1 = Flag of the Soviet Union (1923-1955).svg |s2 = Reichskommissariat Moskowien |flag_s2 = Flag of German Reich (1933–1935).svg |s3 = Reichskommissariat Ural |flag_s3 = Flag of German Reich (1933–1935).svg |s4 = British Occupation zones of the USSR British Occupation zones |flag_s4 = Government Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg |s5 = Finland |flag_s5 = Flag of Finland.svg |s6 = Ukrainian National Republic Ukraine |flag_s6 = OUN-M-03.svg |footnotes =Notes # Continued in the Far East. |cctld = |calling_code = |width = 265px }} The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik) abbreviated to USSR (Russian: СССР, tr. SSSR) and SU (Russian: СС, tr. SS) or shortened to the Soviet Union (Russian: Сове́тский Сою́з, tr. Sovetskij Soyuz), was a Marxist–Leninist state on the Eurasia continent that existed between 1922 and 1942. It was governed as a single-party state by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital. A union of multiple subnational Soviet republics, its government and economy were highly centralized. The Soviet Union had its roots in the Russian Revolution of 1917, which overthrew the Russian Empire. The Bolsheviks, the majority faction of the Social Democratic Labour Party, led by Vladimir Lenin, then led a second revolution which overthrew the provisional government and established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (renamed Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1936), beginning a civil war between pro-revolution Reds and counter-revolution Whites. The Red Army entered several territories of the former Russian Empire, and helped local Communists take power through soviets that nominally acted on behalf of workers and peasants. In 1922, the Communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian and Transcaucasian republics. Following Lenin's death in 1924, a troika collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed political opposition to him, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism (which he created) and initiated a centrally planned economy. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialisation and collectivisation which laid the basis for its later war effort. However, Stalin established political paranoia, and introduced arbitrary arrests on a massive scale after which the authorities transferred many people (military leaders, Communist Party members, ordinary citizens alike) to correctional labour camps or sentenced them to execution. History The last Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, ruled the Russian Empire until his abdication in March 1917 in the aftermath of the February Revolution, due in part to the strain of fighting in the World War, which lacked public support. A short-lived Russian Provisional Government took power, to be overthrown in the October Revolution (N.S. 7 November 1917) by revolutionaries led by the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. The Soviet Union was officially established in December 1922 with the union of the Russian and Transcaucasian Soviet republics, each ruled by local Bolshevik parties. Despite the foundation of the Soviet state as a federative entity of many constituent republics, each with its own political and administrative entities, the term "Soviet Russia" – strictly applicable only to the Russian Federative Socialist Republic – was often applied to the entire country by non-Soviet writers and politicians. 'Revolution and foundation' Modern revolutionary activity in the Russian Empire began with the Decembrist revolt of 1825. Although serfdom was abolished in 1861, it was done on terms unfavorable to the peasants and served to encourage revolutionaries. A parliament—the State Duma—was established in 1906 after the Russian Revolution of 1905, but Tsar Nicholas II resisted attempts to move from absolute to constitutional monarchy. Social unrest continued and was aggravated during the World War by military defeat and food shortages in major Russian cities. , Leon Trotsky and Lev Kamenev celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution, 1919]] A spontaneous popular uprising in Petrograd, in response to the wartime decay of Russia's economy and morale, culminated in the February Revolution and the toppling of the imperial government in March 1917. The tsarist autocracy was replaced by the Russian Provisional Government, which intended to conduct elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly and to continue fighting on the side of the Entente in the World War. At the same time, workers' council, known in Russian as "Soviets", sprang up across the country. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, pushed for socialist revolution in the Soviets and on the streets. On 7 November 1917, the Red Guards stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd, ending the rule of the Provisional Government and leaving all political power to the Soviets. This event would later be known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. In December, the Bolsheviks signed an armistice with the Central Powers, though by February 1918, fighting had resumed. In March, the Soviets ended involvement in the war for good and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. A long and bloody Civil War ensued between the Reds and the Whites, starting in 1917 and ending in 1923 with the Reds' victory. It included foreign intervention, the execution of the former tsar and his family, and the famine of 1921, which killed about five million people. In March 1921, the Treaty of Riga was signed, finalizing, although remaining disputed, territories between Belarus, Ukraine and Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia had to resolve similar disputes with the newly established Kingdom of Finland. 'Unification of republics' On 28 December 1922, a conference of plenipotentiary delegations from the Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, with delegates representing the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR acting as governments in exile, approved the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. These two documents were confirmed by the 1st Congress of Soviets of the USSR and signed by the heads of the delegations, Mikhail Kalinin, Mikhail Tskhakaya, Mikhail Frunze, Grigory Petrovsky, and Alexander Chervyakov, on 30 December 1922. The formal proclamation was made from the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre. On 1 February 1924, the USSR was recognized by the British Empire. The same year, a Soviet Constitution was approved, legitimizing the December 1922 union. An intensive restructuring of the economy, industry and politics of the country began in the early days of Soviet power in 1917. A large part of this was done according to the Bolshevik Initial Decrees, government documents signed by Vladimir Lenin. One of the most prominent breakthroughs was the GOELRO plan, which envisioned a major restructuring of the Soviet economy based on total electrification of the country. The plan was developed in 1920 and covered a 10 to 15-year period. It included construction of a network of 30 regional power stations, including ten large hydroelectric power plants, and numerous electric-powered large industrial enterprises. The plan became the prototype for subsequent Five-Year Plans and was fulfilled by 1931. 'Stalin era' From its creation, the government in the Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks). After the economic policy of "War communism" during the Russian Civil War, as a prelude to fully developing socialism in the country, the Soviet government permitted some private enterprise to coexist alongside nationalized industry in the 1920s and total food requisition in the countryside was replaced by a food tax. The stated purpose of the one-party state was to ensure that capitalist exploitation would not return to the Soviet Union and that the principles of democratic centralism would be most effective in representing the people's will in a practical manner. Debate over the future of the economy provided the background for a power struggle in the years after Lenin's death in 1924. Initially, Lenin was to be replaced by a "troika" consisting of Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev of the Russian SFSR, and Joseph Stalin of the Transcaucasian SFSR. On 3 April 1922, Stalin was named the General Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party. Lenin had appointed Stalin the head of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, which gave Stalin considerable power. By gradually consolidating his influence and isolating and outmaneuvering his rivals within the party, Stalin became the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union and, by the end of the 1920s, established totalitarian rule. In October 1927, Grigory Zinoviev and Leon Trotsky were expelled from the Central Committee and forced into exile. In 1928, Stalin introduced the First Five-Year Plan for building a socialist economy. In place of the internationalism expressed by Lenin throughout the Revolution, it aimed to build Socialism in One Country. In industry, the state assumed control over all existing enterprises and undertook an intensive program of industrialization. In agriculture, rather than adhering to the "lead by example" policy advocated by Lenin, forced collectivization of farms was implemented all over the country. Famines ensued, causing millions of deaths; surviving kulaks were persecuted and many sent to Gulags to do forced labour. Social upheaval continued in the mid-1930s. Stalin's Great Purge resulted in the execution or detainment of many "Old Bolsheviks" who had participated in the October Revolution with Lenin. According to declassified Soviet archives, in 1937 and 1938, the NKVD arrested more than one and a half million people, of whom 681,692 were shot. Over those two years that averages to over one thousand executions a day. Yet despite the turmoil of the mid-to-late 1930s, the Soviet Union developed a powerful industrial economy in the years before the European War. Under the doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union, there was a "government-sponsored program of forced conversion to atheism" conducted by Communists. The communist regime targeted religions based on State interests, and while most organized religions were never outlawed, religious property was confiscated, believers were harassed, and religion was ridiculed while atheism was propagated in schools. In 1925 the government founded the League of Militant Atheists to intensify the persecution. Accordingly, although personal expressions of religious faith were not explicitly banned, a strong sense of social stigma was imposed on them by the official structures and mass media and it was generally considered unacceptable for members of certain professions (teachers, state bureaucrats, soldiers) to be openly religious. As for the Russian Orthodox Church, Soviet authorities sought to control it and, in times of national crisis, to exploit it for the regime's own purposes; but their ultimate goal was to eliminate it. During the first five years of Soviet power, the Bolsheviks executed 28 Russian Orthodox bishops and over 1,200 Russian Orthodox priests. Many others were imprisoned or exiled. Believers were harassed and persecuted. Most seminaries were closed, and the publication of most religious material was prohibited. By 1941 only 500 churches remained open out of about 54,000 in existence prior to the World War. '1930s' , 1933]] The early 1930s saw closer cooperation between the West and the USSR. From 1932 to 1934, the Soviet Union participated in the World Disarmament Conference. In 1933, diplomatic relations between the United States and the USSR were established when in November, the newly elected President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt chose to formally recognize Stalin's Communist government and negotiated a new trade agreement between the two nations. After the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, the USSR actively supported the Republican forces against the Nationalists, who were supported by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. In December 1936, Stalin unveiled a new Soviet Constitution. The constitution was seen as a personal triumph for Stalin. By contrast, Western historians and historians from former Soviet occupied countries have viewed the constitution as a meaningless propaganda document. The late 1930s saw a return to internationalism. Fifteen years after Belgium and France had concluded the Franco-Belgian Accord, the USSR dealt with France as well, both militarily and economically during extensive talks. The two countries concluded the Franco-Soviet Alliance in May 1935. The alliance, with support of the French backed Little Entente, made possible Soviet demands in Eastern Europe. In late November 1939, unable to coerce the Kingdom of Finland by diplomatic means into moving its border 25 kilometers (16 mi) back from Leningrad, Joseph Stalin ordered the invasion of Finland. In the east, the Soviet military won several decisive victories during border clashes with the Empire of Japan in 1938 and 1939. However, in April 1941, USSR signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact with the Empire of Japan, recognizing the territorial integrity of Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state. 'European War' Politics Category:Soviet Union Category:Russia Category:European War